Wireless services, such as cellular or mobile phone services, typically include voice services, Short Message Service (“SMS”) services, and data services. A wireless service provider typically bundles a particular number of voice minutes, a particular number of SMS messages, and an amount of data transfer for a prepaid or postpaid monthly wireless plan. A subscriber will purchase a bundle appropriate for his/her usage. When the subscriber places or receives a call, sends or receives an SMS message, and/or uploads or downloads data from his/her wireless device, appropriate units of usage are deducted from the subscriber's monthly wireless plan.
In prior wireless networks, the usage of each wireless service could be tracked because each type of wireless service was managed by different switches. For example, voice calls were routed through circuit switches, SMS messages were routed through SMS centers (“SMSC”), and data was routed through various servers. Therefore, by monitoring and/or receiving feedback from each of the switches, the usage of a particular wireless device could be tracked.
However, emerging wireless networks route all wireless services as packet data through a single switch or limited number of switches. For example, voice calls can be transmitted as data over Long Term Evolution (“LTE”) networks using various protocols, such as Voice over LTE (“VoLTE”). Therefore, voice calls in emerging wireless networks are tracked as data usage, making it difficult to appropriately deduct voice minutes from the subscriber's monthly plan. Moreover, different types of voice calls, such as free calls to the mobile network operator or paid calls to a landline, cannot be distinguished, which adds to the difficulty of determining the number of minutes that a subscriber has used. As such, the current methods of monitoring and/or receiving feedback from switches of a wireless network cannot be applied to accurately track usage of a wireless device over an emerging wireless network.
Therefore, a new method and system for more accurately tracking usage of a wireless device connected to an emerging wireless network is needed.